Modernization

Legacy application modernization is an ongoing challenge: today's modern applications are tomorrow's legacy.

The process

Modernizing a legacy .NET application into a distributed system is a lengthy process that often involves multiple teams over many months or years. It should therefore be approached strategically to increase the chances of a successful modernization.

The Particular Service Platform with NServiceBus can help to enable that process to proceed safely, incrementally, and successfully.

This section demonstrates how the platform capabilities can help to overcome various challenges of modernization.

The challenges

Hybrid system interoperability

Knowing where to start is one of the first challenges when modernizing. Small pieces of functionality to extract can be identified, and new services can be built around the legacy application resulting in hybrid system.

These systems need to communicate, and messaging patterns offer a flexible, reliable and less disruptive way to connect, especially when handling data format differences and gradual migrations.

Furthermore, asynchronous messaging enables old and new components to communicate reliably, without tight coupling.

NServiceBus simplifies building distributed systems by providing a messaging framework that abstracts away the complexities of message queues, enhancing scalability, reliability, and maintainability. It includes first-class support for modern architecture concepts like pub/sub and sagas, helping teams coordinate complex workflows and build event-driven systems with minimal boilerplate.

Bridging the gap

As more services come online, system communication becomes essential.

The NServiceBus Messaging Bridge acts as a connector, allowing endpoints using different brokers (transports) to exchange messages seamlessly and reliably.

NServiceBus further enables this communication by providing native integrations with:

Ensuring data integrity

Modifying business data and sending messages in one transaction is a common requirement - achieving this in ASP.NET applications while ensuring data integrity and consistency isn't trivial.

Legacy applications often rely on the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) to keep data consistent. MSDTC is not ideal for modern distributed applications because it relies on two-phase commit, which limits scalability, resilience, and flexibility in cloud-native environments.

NServiceBus provides features such as the transactional session and the outbox, which help to move away from MSDTC while ensuring data integrity.

System monitoring

The Particular Platform provides tools to effectively handle error management and stability monitoring, which is often something not present in legacy applications.

This is crucial to ensuring system correctness and consistency, as failure to do so can lead to significant operational, financial, and reputational risks.

ServicePulse is a web application designed for administrators. It provides:

a clear, near real-time, high-level overview of how a system is currently functioning
common failure recovery operations, such as retrying failed messages
endpoint health
real time monitoring

Support

Knowing that expert support is available throughout the legacy application modernization process provides peace of mind and allows developers to focus on other aspects of their business.

Particular provides platform support at every step of the process, from design to production: